Sony Vaio EB Loud Fan Noise

Let us know what happens with Sony. You should RMA the machine if still under warranty.

Hi There,

I Have a Sony Vaio VPCEB24FD, I got it in September and it has a very loud fan noise, even louder than my old desktop pc! . I am hoping that i dont have to under-volt my cpu. Also My Laptop gets so hot that i feel like its going to burn my lap .

Thanks,
Deven Prasad

I've got a Sony Vaio VPCEB47GM. The Quick Start Guide > Care and Handling Tips > Ventilation section says, "Place your computer on a hard surface such as a desk or table. Proper air circulation around vents is important to reduce heat."

If it feels like your lap is getting burned then possibly your Vaio is overheating which usually results in maximum fan operation which leads to much higher fan noise. Even if Sony does find something else wrong that was causing the excessive fan noise, I'd recommend a cooling pad especially if you're going to keep placing the comp on your lap or on top of the bed, etc.

Correct, if you place the laptop on your lap or irregular surface like a bed or sofa it can easily block the small intake vent underneath so that air is cut off. This will cause it to quickly overheat.

Try running it on a flat surface, or with the back end propped up 1/2 to an inch to see if it helps. If not then insist that Sony fix or replace this as well as the loud fan..

I blew mine out and it quit....dirty

I am having sony vaio. It also started making too much FAN noise even thought it is not heating up !! And the great thing is when I use Win7 OS it is making noise while when I use Ubuntu it didn't make noise even after running for more than 12 hours ????? Need solution !!
I cant use it in my class anymore during lectures it cause disturbance to all the students.
Even I use laptop only on desks or other flat surface only for proper ventilation.

Most likely it is dirty.....blow it out.....it stopped my fan noise

OP did you find a solution?

I have a 2 year old Sony VAIO VPCEB-390x. ($1300, Intel i5 2.53ghz, 500GB HD, 512mb ATI radeon, 8GB ram, windows 7 professional)

The first 6-12 months I had it, it was VERY quiet and the fan would come on only when I started opening programs, tabs, etc, then shut back off. Otherwise all I could hear is the hard drive thinking here and there.

My warranty was up after 1 year, and around this point it started to get very loud. Not quite as loud as some videos on youtube i've seen of VAIO's, but at idle, doing absolutely nothing (0% CPU usage, 20% memory usage), there is a constant humming or whirring sound, the fan. When I start opening tabs and programs, it gets about twice as loud and by this point I get a headache and put it to sleep to let it rest.

For some reason, it runs quite hot even when there's 0% CPU usage and only ~20% memory usage. I have a program that tells me the temperatures of my laptop, and it would stay in the green "safe" zone, then I open firefox, media player, etc, and it enters the "red" hot zone. I also can feel very warm air being pushed out of the side when it's just idling on the desktop.

About 6 months ago I took the laptop apart and blew air duster all around the fan, there was only a very slight amount of dust. Didn't help at all. I also got a large USB air-cooler that my laptop sits on now, and it might help a tiny bit, to where my laptop stays a few degrees cooler and is less likely to get loud.

I bought a $40 internal fan from China, looks identical to the current one, and am going to install that and let you know how it goes. My last sony that I bought in 2006 and used for a few years eventually got VERY loud too, but made less of a smooth whirring sound like my current VAIO, and sounded more like the fan bearings needed oil badly (grinding sound). My HP laptop I got in 2004 had a similar grinding sound too.

It's frustrating mostly cause i've seen 2-3 year old $500 Lenovos, all the way to $2000 Macbook pro's that make absolutely no fan noises unless you start taxing it and opening lots of programs or playing videogames. It's unfortunate that either the VAIO design is bad for airflow and cooling, or the fan is just really cheap and gets loud and obnoxious after little use. I have a feeling it's not even my fan but probably the computer itself just running hotter and hotter.

edit: one final thing.. even when its running loud and hot, it runs very quickly.. i recently went from 4GB to 8GB ram and that helped it move much quicker. I also use labor-intensive rendering programs like Revit and AutoCAD, and it moves along well.